Intro to Sociology: Theories, Thinkers & Key Terms

C. Wright Mills' term for seeing the connection between personal troubles and larger social forces and history.

Auguste Comte

An early British sociologist who translated Comte into English and studied society, including the position of women, in Society in America (1837).

That suicide rates vary with social integration and regulation, showing that even a personal act is shaped by social facts.

Anomie

Mechanical: unity based on shared beliefs and similar lives in traditional societies. Organic: unity based on interdependence from a complex division of labor in modern societies.

Traditional, charismatic and rational-legal

That Calvinist values of hard work, thrift and discipline helped capitalism develop.

Structural functionalism: society as parts working together for stability Conflict theory: society shaped by inequality and struggle over resources (Marx) Symbolic interactionism: society built through everyday interactions and shared meanings

Manifest functions are intended and obvious; latent functions are unintended. School's manifest function is education; a latent one is finding friends or partners.

The looking-glass self

The “I” is the spontaneous, acting self; the “me” is the social self formed by internalizing others' expectations.

Primary groups are small, close and long-lasting (family, close friends). Secondary groups are larger, impersonal and goal-oriented (a class, a workplace).

Folkways: everyday customs, mildly enforced. Mores: norms with moral weight, strongly enforced. Taboos: the strongest norms, whose violation causes disgust.

Ascribed status is given at birth or involuntary (race, age); achieved status is earned (doctor, graduate). A master status is the one that dominates how others see you.

Role strain: tension within one role (a teacher with too many students). Role conflict: tension between different roles (being a parent and an employee).

Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by your own standards; cultural relativism tries to understand a culture on its own terms.

Cultural lag

Intergenerational: change in social position between parents and children. Intragenerational: change within one person's lifetime.

Conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion, depending on whether people accept society's goals and the approved means to reach them.

Labeling theory

Social life as a performance: people manage impressions on a “front stage” and relax “backstage.”

Double consciousness

From W.I. Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1928).

Gemeinschaft: close-knit community based on personal ties. Gesellschaft: impersonal society based on self-interest and formal relationships.

McDonaldization